No Thief So Politic
by repmetsyrrah
Summary: S/T. 3x05 AU. "Saoirse having the childhood I had would be my worst nightmare. But I hope to give her Ireland one day at least."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **So this fic came about as a result of myself and my lovely beta, babageneush, discovering we share a headcanon of Tom's childhood.

It was meant to be a oneshot but it got away from me just a tiny bit, and now it's four parts. 3x05 AU. Enjoy!

**Chapter One**

* * *

"This is unusual."

Tom looked up as his brother-in-law entered the drawing room before dinner, finding the Irishman alone.

"Sybil and Edith are with Saoirse," Tom informed him, "I was banished down here to allow them some time alone."

Matthew nodded. "Mary's talking with Anna, I banished myself."

Tom laughed. He knew well enough how excluded men were from some discussions women had. Even his own darling suffragette lost him with her talk of the newest styles sometimes.

"Did you hear from your family?" his brother-in-law asked, breaking the companionable silence.

"They're coming over for the christening," Tom said, pleased but unable to be entirely happy with the arrangement. "They've all been polite enough not to mention it's here rather than at home where it should be."

Matthew nodded slowly, well aware of his brother-in-law's frustration and despair over his exile.

"It seems sad, that you can't give her the childhood you had."

Tom laughed, a hint of bitterness in the sound.

"Saoirse having the childhood I had would be my worst nightmare. But I hope to give her Ireland one day at least."

Matthew looked up in surprise.

Tom hesitated, somewhat regretting his reaction but deciding he trusted Matthew enough and if he waved it off now his brother-in-law would imagine the worst.

"My father was a drunk and my mother kicked him out just before I turned ten," he told the other man, "we couldn't pay rent and we got turned out soon after. We lived in a small room at the back of an abandoned building for the next seven years. Spent most of my days on the streets, stealing from anyone I could just to afford food. Not quite the life I'd wish for my daughter."

Matthew was silent for a while.

"I had no idea."

Tom shrugged. "It's in the past, and I know it sounds harsh but I was lucky really. I had my family and when I was almost eighteen I was offered an apprenticeship with the chauffeur at the house of my brother's employer's sister. The mistress was kind enough to offer us a cottage along with the job. But I worked hard, we all did, and now my mother has a flat in a decent suburb and all my siblings have steady jobs that don't involve picking pockets."

"You were a pickpocket?"

"We picked pockets, ran cons, nicked from the market stalls. Sold everything thing that wasn't cash."

Matthew frowned.

"You don't believe me?" Tom didn't know why he smiled at that. It seemed odd, that Matthew of all people wouldn't believe a child could grow up in such poverty.

His brother-in-law had the good grace to look sheepish before answering. "You seem too honest to have made a successful career as a thief."

"You ought to have seen me when I was younger," Tom told him, laughing. "I had more ways to get money out of pockets than a snake oil salesman."

* * *

_The wind was biting, cutting through the threadbare shirt Tom wore like it was nothing._

_He pretended not to notice. He'd gotten good at ignoring things like that. The cold, the hollowness in his stomach that could last for days._

_His mother was in the factory again, earning money enough to feed half them. It was Tom and his siblings who had to find the other half._

_Kieran had borrowed the violin from the butcher again and gone to a nice part of town, where the wallets were fatter. Liam's light fingers had gone with him. Tom hoped they'd come back with a good haul. But that didn't mean he could rest, there was always more food needed, more blankets or God forbid one of them took ill._

_Not to mention the chance for either of the brothers to be caught by the police._

_Spying a well-dressed gentleman coming towards him, Tom sized him up. Head-up, he was at ease, his shoulders back, casual, suspecting nothing. Perfect._

_He waited until the man was almost to his hiding place before nodding at the small girl crouched by the wall opposite._

_On his signal, Kathy darted out from her spot, and before the man could react she'd barrelled into him, dropping the bottle they'd nicked from some bins onto the pavement, the glass shattering and the sour milk that had been inside spreading across the puddles, the water quickly diluting the smell._

_On cue, she burst into tears, picking up a shard and wailing like it had been a diamond._

"_Oh, lord," the man exclaimed, crouching beside her. "I'm so sorry, I'd didn't see you. Oh, don't cry. It's only a little milk."_

_In his hiding spot, Tom couldn't help frowning. _

_Only a little milk? _

_He'd give anything to live in a world where one could be so flippant about wasting food. He'd barely believed it when he'd found them, three half-filled milk bottles just tossed away. The milk inside gone bad._

_To Tom it was an unimaginable luxury to allow food to spoil._

"_Da'll beat me," Kathy sobbed. "I promised I wouldn't lose the money. But now I've nothing to bring home."_

"_Oh, no, no, here lass," The man reached into his pocket as he knelt beside her, taking out several coins and holding them towards the crying child. "Go buy some more, quick, he'll never need to know."_

_Reining back her tears, Kathy nodded as she took the money. "Thank you," she said, the words the lone part of the act that were truly genuine. Tom was thankful too. It may have been taken under false pretences but the man really was helping a small child to live another day. _

_How could they not be thankful to him?_

_Perhaps they could even buy some good milk today._

_Kathy gave another sob, wiping her eyes and nodding at the man's blessing before running back down the street, glancing over a shoulder to make sure he was gone before turning to her brother's hiding place and holding out her prize._

"_Good?" the seven year old asked._

"_Good." Tom pulled her close, hugging her tight. "Very good."_

_They stayed a moment longer, sharing their warmth and shielding each other from the wind before Tom sighed._

"_Come on now, grab the other bottles and we'll find someone else."_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Huge thanks to everyone who read and reviewed chapter one (I'm the worse with review replies but I promise this chapter I'll be good).

**Chapter Two**

* * *

She noticed it shortly after she arrived downstairs.

He had greeted her as usual but she hadn't been worried when he'd turned straight back to Matthew. They had spent the day together; they had no great need to discuss events they had both experienced.

She was rather surprised though, when she noticed him talking with her mother only a few minutes later.

"Sybil, are you listening?" Mary gave her a frown.

"Yes, of course." She tore her eyes away from her husband. "They didn't have the fabric you wanted."

"No, and then they had the audacity to suggest I hadn't even asked for it."

Sybil sipped her cocktail and nodded along as she watched Tom from the corner of her eye.

Her eyes followed as he moved on to Edith, engaging her in a conversation about her plans with her writing.

Something was going on. He never spoke to so many of them before dinner. He liked a deep conversation, not many small ones.

It wasn't until she watched him abandon his conversation with Edith and step behind Mary to take a drink off Alfred's just-a-tad-too-high tray that she pulled him aside.

"Is everything alright?"

"Of course." He gave her a slight frown. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Sybil merely raised an eyebrow.

Tom sighed. "I'm proving something to Matthew," he said quietly. "I-

"Dinner is served, Your Ladyship."

Mr. Carson's deep voice interrupted their hushed conversation. Tom didn't look back to her right away, shifting his focus to Matthew for a moment before turning to her.

"I'll explain later," he promised, stepping away before she had a chance to reply.

He moved to join Matthew, saying something that made the other man laugh, they stepped into the dining room together, and Sybil gasped slightly as Tom's hand brushed lightly against the other man's sleeve and...

He _wasn't_-

"Sybil?"

Her mother's voice distracted her before she could look closer.

"Coming."

The discussion at dinner wasn't as light as Sybil would have liked, turning to the touchy subject of Edith's new writing career. Sybil and Tom supported her of course but Robert called upon his mother to offer her own advice which she did, managing to both support and bring down her granddaughter in the process.

Matthew broke the awkward pause. He wasn't as skilled in the art of conversation as the ladies but a change in subject, even a clumsy one, was welcome.

"Tom was mentioning earlier he heard back from his family."

"Yes." Tom followed his lead. "This morning, they wrote to confirm the dates they'll be staying for the Christening.

"Goodness, they're _all _coming?"

"Yes." His reply was short but polite.

Sybil couldn't blame him. It was impossible not to pick up the patronising tone in her grandmother's voice. She made a note to thank him for his tolerance. Again.

"Do you have many?" Tom pressed his lips together at the question.

Sybil couldn't help feel irritated on his behalf. Her grandmother's tone clearly implied she expected a baker's dozen of Irish Catholics soon to overrun Downton.

"I've two brothers and one sister," he told her. "I'm second oldest."

"It's wonderful they could all find time," Lady Grantham said loudly, preventing any further comment from her mother-in-law. "We look forward to meeting them."

"They're very nice," Edith chimed in, "Tom's mother in particular was wonderful when we went over."

"It will be lovely to see everyone again," Sybil sighed, "I've missed them all."

"Me too." For a moment Tom let his delight show truly on his face, a rare break in the walls he usually kept up at the Downton dinner table.

"Are you close with them?" Matthew hadn't missed the look either.

Tom nodded, smiling again.

"Very."

* * *

_Moving into the single room in an abandoned, half fallen down building with four young children, Mrs Branson had looked an easy target._

_A single woman, probably a widow, and four children who all looked as if the wind might blow them away should have made easy pickings._

_It had taken all of three days for the rest of the "residents" to realise it was too much trouble to mess with Mrs Branson, three and a half before they realised it wasn't worth their lives to mess with her children._

_After four years the Branson family was left alone for the most part, they were even on friendly terms with the majority of the longer-term residents. Though 'friendly' was a relative term. They lived in a harsh world and they all knew it well enough to risk trusting anyone completely._

_So it was no surprise when Tom found his mother had left for work early, leaving all the children still asleep with no one on guard, confident they would be safe. They kept a tripwire across the bottom of the doorframe just in case, but it was rarely needed._

"_We'll head to Merrit Square." Kieran made the decision after they were all awake. "Tommy can play and the rest of us can work the crowd."_

_They nodded, gathering their supplies and ignoring their hunger as they left for the square, picking up the violin from the butcher who let them borrow it on their way._

_It was only after Tom had been playing for a little over an hour, collecting a few coins in his hat, when he noticed something was wrong._

"_Where's Kieran?" he asked Liam sharply, breaking the rule they had to pretend they were strangers._

_Liam shook his head. "Just wondering the same thing."_

_Tom scanned the crowd again. Kathy was to his left, he caught her eye and she raised her hands and shook her head._

"_Fuck."_

_Quickly passing the violin to his brother, he stuffed the coins into his pocket and replaced his hat on his head as Liam took the instrument and put it back in the case._

"_He was over that side," Kathy told them as they hurried to join her. "I turned to dip a lady's purse and when I look back he's gone."_

"_Fuck."_

"_Where exactly was he?"_

"_Here." The girl checked her pockets were secure before leading her brothers to the side of the square and into a small alleyway where they stopped dead at the sight in front of them._

"_Let him go!" The demand came sharply from the youngest Branson, Kathy being the first to recover from her surprise._

_Kieran grunted as the large man holding him tightened his grip, lifting a hand to tug uselessly at the arm around his neck._

_The man's accomplices, four other large, menacing thugs, turned at the sound and moved to form a line, keeping Kieran with them. Tom felt a flare of anger as he saw the blood on their knuckles. His brother was battered and bruised and Tom knew immediately the men weren't the threat they seemed. _

_Only cowards would take on a smaller person in a much larger group._

"_Who's going to make us, love?" The largest of the group cracked his knuckles, sneering at the children._

_Kathy reached down and pulled her knife from her belt, causing the gang to laugh._

"_Well, you're a cute wee one aren't you?"_

"_You think I don't know how to use it?" she snarled. "I'll slice your fucking cock off if you don't let him go _now_."_

_Tom grinned when the men stopped smiling and looked somewhat cautious at his sister's words as he pulled his own blade. He'd never done any serious damage with it but he was skilled enough to know he could if he needed to._

_And protecting his brother most definitely fit that category._

_Liam didn't draw a weapon, instead spitting on the road and staring the biggest member of the gang straight in the eyes._

"_Merrit Square's a free spot, always has been. No one's ever told us we can't work it before."_

"_Well maybe we're telling you now," the man suggested._

"_And maybe we won't be the only ones to take issue with that," Liam replied, "you seem rather new, if you don't realise that."_

"_Guess what else is new." One of the men grinned widely, reaching to his belt and withdrawing his own weapon._

_Tom almost laughed._

_A gun against three kids?_

_Fucking cowards._

"_We'll leave," Kieran said suddenly, as the tension in the alleyway shot upwards._

"_Maybe they should leave first." _

_The hammer of the gun gave a sharp thunk as it was pulled back._

"_Don't- please-" Kieran's attacker tightened his grip around the boy's neck, cutting off his pleas._

_Tom knew he wanted them to run, as far and as fast as they could. It was what they had agreed to, what they knew. Run first, only fight if you have to, and only if you think you can win. _

_They couldn't win against a bullet._

_None of them moved._

"_You'll shoot a bunch of kids in broad daylight?" Liam gave wore sceptical look, ignoring his brother._

"_This isn't the tenements," Tom agreed, "people are going to come looking for a gunshot. You think you'll make it ten feet before they get you?"_

"_I don't mind the odds."_

"_If you don't put that away, I'll scream." The threat almost caused the men to laugh again before Kathy stood up straighter and let her face crumple, her bottom lip stuck out as she started to gasp. "These men h-hurt my brother and they said-" she gave a flawless sob- "they said they'd kill us!"_

_Tom laughed as the men looked at each other, seriously reconsidering their options. It hadn't taken Kathy long at all to realise a small, crying girl could get her way with almost anyone and she had long since perfected her technique. If she screamed and summoned a crowd before the men could shoot and silence all the Bransons they were most likely done for._

"_Fucking kids." The tension broke at the muttered curse. Stepping back, the leader nodded at his accomplices and Kieran was released, falling to the ground before the men scarpered as fast as they could._

"_You alright?" Kathy was the first to his side, her eyes dry and her face suddenly serious again, as the three siblings dashed to their brother's aid, helping him sit up and wiping the blood from his eyes._

"_I've had worse."_

"_We ought to track them down," Tom said, turning in the direction they'd run off to. "If they think we'll let them get away with this-"_

_Kieran shook his head, wincing and stopping quickly. "It's not worth it, Tommy. There's only the four of us and no one will back us up against an older lot. We'll go home, keep an ear to the ground, someone with enough force to strike back will run into them sooner or later."_

"_Someone with a gun you mean."_

_Kieran just shook his head again, slower this time. "You all should have run," he told them firmly, "you all know we don't stand our ground against guns."_

"_You're just as stupid as them if you thought we'd leave you." Tom's tone left no room for protest._

_Kieran sighed. "Just help me home you little buggers, and don't fucking scare me like that again."_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you again for the lovely comments. Only one more after this.

**Chapter Three**

* * *

"How is she?" Her husband's question came as soon as the men stepped in to join the ladies after dinner.

Sybil smiled, it was her habit to visit their daughter immediately after dinner, if the baby was awake she would stay but they had learnt very quickly to let her sleep if she needed.

"Perfect, as always."

She reached a hand out to pull him down beside her, flicking her eyes to his wrist as he did so.

"I'm not sure that suits you."

Tom just grinned and both turned to look at Edith, who seemed to finally notice something wasn't quite right.

"Something the matter?" Cora asked, for once noticing her middle child.

"Nothing." Edith said distractedly, frowning at her hand.

Sybil shook her head as Tom gave her a sheepish look.

"Are you looking for your bracelet?" she asked her sister.

"Yes, have you seen it?"

Sybil gave her husband a pointed look. "Yes, and I think it looked much better on her, don't you?"

Tom winked at her and twisted his arm, causing his sleeve to slip down slightly, revealing a very out-of-place golden band around his wrist.

"What were you doing with that?" Lord Grantham's face was furious, though everyone else was just anywhere between confused and amazed.

"Proving a point to Matthew, I believe." Sybil kept eye contact with him as she shifted slightly to sit closer to her husband, her movements deliberate.

"Not a point so much as a skill," Tom corrected her, completely ignoring his father-in-law's glare. "I told Matthew I used to pick pockets when I was a child and he didn't believe me. I thought a demonstration was better to convince him."

"But I was _wearing_ that." Edith reached out to retrieve the hinged bracelet as Tom offered it back, thankfully sounding more amazed than angry.

"And Matthew was wearing his cufflinks too," Sybil added, not missing that her husband now had two pairs on.

Her cousin's eyes almost jumped from his head.

"How in God's name did you manage that?" he asked, utterly stunned as he checked his cuffs to confirm his links were indeed missing.

"That would be telling," Tom replied cheekily.

"Well I certainly no longer doubt. So you stole bracelets and cufflinks when you were younger?"

"Well, wallets mainly, but you could sell anything if you knew the right people. Bracelets, cufflinks, hairpins."

He flicked his wrist and, seemingly producing it from midair, held up a long silver pin with a cluster of diamonds on the end.

Mary's hand flew to her hair.

Tom grinned as Sybil burst into laughter at the stunned look on her face. There weren't many things that could shock her older sister but she couldn't blame her. The first day Tom had demonstrated his tricks to her he'd managed to take everything from her pockets within half an hour without her noticing.

"Should we start tying our jewellery on then?" The Dowager Countess spoke up for the first time since the men had entered, looking at Tom with suspicion. Well, more than usual.

"I only stole when I had to, which I haven't for a very long time."

"Excluding tonight."

Sybil frowned as Mary leaned forward, retrieving her pin carefully as if afraid it might burn her.

"I don't think it counts if he's giving them back," Matthew said, adjusting his reclaimed cufflinks, still looking at Tom in awe.

The Dowager seemed unconvinced.

"I thought you were apprenticed to a chauffeur on an estate when you were younger?" Edith asked, one hand playing with her bracelet.

"Not until I was nearly eighteen, older than most would consider taking on but the mistress was a kind soul at heart. I owe her an awful lot."

* * *

"_You got anything, Branson?"_

"_If I do it's not any of your business," Tom snapped, careful to keep his hand from instinctively straying to his pocket where the wallet and watch he'd lifted from a stern-looking porter at the station that morning were sitting nicely._

_Joe spat in the bushes before nodding at a group of well dressed women across the street. "They look soft." _

_Tom rolled his eyes. "You won't get ten feet to them before they tense up and edge away from the likes of us."_

_Joe tried to act hardened but Tom had been living on the streets for almost six years. He knew without even needing to consider that the well-dressed ladies would baulk at the sight of poor, unwashed children attempting to get anywhere near them. _

_The perfect environment for a pickpocket was one where the thief blended in seamlessly, where everyone was relaxed and unaware. Grubby street urchins did not fit in with, nor relax, rich ladies._

"_Who cares anyway?" the third boy, Dale, asked. "They ain't got any money and we'd get arrested so as we tried to sell their trinkets."_

"_Why don't we wait then break into the bakery tonight? Could do with some fresh bread 'stead of the stale shit they force on us here."_

"_I don't want to stay out tonight," Tom said distractedly, already eager to be home._

"_His Mammy will worry," Dale sneered._

_Tom took a quick step towards the other boy, feeling a flare of satisfaction as he flinched. _

_The Branson children had mixed relationships with the other street children. The small gangs, populated mostly by almost-adults who joined fresh out of orphanages or bad homes, tended to leave them alone._

_They took in the desperate ones, too old for an orphanage, too young to know how bad the situation they had stumbled into was going to be._

_The orphanage children themselves varied between those who couldn't care less about their circumstances so long as they were willing to run a con or two or trade food and those who were bitterly jealous of the Bransons._

_Half of them were there because of situations exactly like Tom's. One parent gone. Dead or just disappeared it didn't matter. Mothers unable and fathers unwilling to raise them alone._

_Tom supposed some were grateful. He was thankful every day to be rid of his father._

_His mother always told them it was different before he'd lost his job the first time but Tom had been too young to remember._

_All Tom remembered of his father was his rage and his fists._

_It had lost them their house and a steady income but Tom understood why his mother had locked her husband out one night. Why she had refused to let him return until he had left, cursing her name, and never returned. _

_The only thing he never understood was why she had waited so long._

_Kieran had borne the brunt of their father's aggression. Fiercely protective of his younger siblings, no matter who was hurting them, he would rush to take any punishment if it meant sparing them one. But Joseph Branson was a drunkard, and when his wife was unavailable his fists found fault with all his children._

_Tom had been beaten into unconsciousness more than once. He always defended himself fiercely but his small, underfed frame was no match for the much larger dock-worker._

_Liam and Kathy had only a few scars and fewer memories and Tom prayed every day they would heal and that those two, at least, were young enough to forget._

_The day they were forcibly kicked out of their flat their mother had taken their hands and promised them, right there and then, on the street with nowhere to go, that she would never leave them. That they would always stay together._

_That they would always be a family._

_Tom never wondered why his mother stayed with them, it was beyond comprehension that she would turn her back on her children. His mother lived and breathed for her children. She would look after them until the last breath left her body._

_He couldn't conceive a reality where she would have abandoned them on a doorstep, or given them to the nuns as had happened to Dale and Joe respectively._

_The rest of the orphanage children had about the same luck. Abandoned or unwanted wherever their parents could be rid of them. And so, while they had beds and a sure, if meagre, meal to go to that night, Tom had something utterly priceless in his drafty, damp, half crumbling room. Something they could only dream of._

_A family._

"_Fuck it," Tom muttered after a long while. "I'm leaving, there's nothing here today."_

"_That's right, run back to your Mam."_

"_Least I've got one," Tom shot back, already halfway down the street._

_They didn't catch him._

_It was starting to cloud over, and Tom was dreading the promised rain, trying to recall if there was anything on his way home he could pinch to catch the water that would fall from the ceiling tonight._

"_Tommy!" His brother's shout pulled him from his thoughts and he turned, grinning as Liam ran across the street to join him._

"_Where have you been then?" Tom asked, embracing him before throwing his arm around his brother's shoulders as they walked together._

"_At the market down past the flower shop. It's been a month since I last hit it so I figured it was safe. Got a few trinkets we can sell on Sunday."_

"_Good job."_

_They had almost reached their building when their sister came running out to meet them, looking excited._

"_Tommy, Liam, come hear!"_

_She didn't wait to explain, waving her arms at them to follow as she dashed back inside._

"_What on Earth..."_

_The brothers exchanged a baffled look before running after their sister._

"_What's going on?" Liam asked as they burst into their room to find Kieran grinning madly and their mother looking almost overwhelmed by whatever he had been telling her._

"_A man up near the park offered Kieran a job, a proper real job in a big house!" Kathy burst out, as soon as she saw they'd followed._

"_What?"_

"_Settle down now," their Ma ordered them. "Kieran will explain."_

"_I was just waiting to cross and I saw this chauffeur, outside the cobbler's, he was having trouble with the car. I offered to help, hoped he'd give me a coin but after we were done he said he needed an apprentice, and he didn't mind me older than most, said he'd prefer a more sensible lad who was willing to work than a young kid who'd lose interest."_

"_Just like that?" _

_If Kieran had been a nasty sort Tom would have thought the story some sort of joke but there wasn't a cruel bone in the young man's body and he looked too happy to be having them on._

"_It's six days a week with lunch included."_

"_Hush," their mother ordered, when his siblings all started to speak at once at that revelation. "When do you start?"_

"_Tomorrow."_

"_Well then, work hard," she told her eldest child, her voice thick with happiness as she leaned forward and hugged him tightly, "and pray there's more where that came from."_

_If there was one thing the Bransons knew, it was how to pray._

_Tom never thought it made much of a difference, if God truly loved him he would already live in a proper house, perhaps with a father who loved him. _

_But he loved his mother and she asked. So every night he joined her, bowing his head and rattling off a rosary he didn't even think was heard._

_Less than a year later his brother came home with news they had been waiting for. "The chauffeur at Mr. Delderfield's sister's needs an apprentice. I said you're still available and you'd fit the bill perfectly."_

"_Oh, Tommy." His mother pulled him to her chest, blinking back tears._

"_It gets better," Kieran told them, practically humming with excitement. "The estate used to be bigger but people've left. They've a spare cottage near the garage. Mrs Delderfield says it's just crumbling now so if Tommy's prepared to give only a quarter of his wages as rent, we can live in it."_

_For the first time in a long while, Tom wondered if his prayers had been answered after all._


	4. Chapter 4

Last chapter! No flashback in this one but I hope you'll find it satisfying none the less.

**Chapter Four**

* * *

The excitement of Tom's hidden talents took a while to quiet down. He'd fielded questions left and right, mostly from Edith and Matthew and for the most part he managed to avoid the awkward questions about_ why_ he'd been forced to steal and drew attention from it by focusing on how.

He offered to demonstrate a few of his tricks on a still-baffled Matthew, getting another round of amazed gasps when he stole the other man's tie and watch in the process.

But when it all did die down and he and Sybil finally retreated to their bedroom, Tom found himself with nothing to do but reflect on the why. On why his childhood had driven him to such acts.

"Something the matter?"

He looked up as Sybil entered the room in her dressing gown, having fed and put down Saoirse for the night.

"Just... thinking."

He was reluctant to say more but his hand gave him away, reaching to his other wrist to run his thumb over a small, faded scar.

It was far from the only physical sign that remained on his body of his father but it was the most meaningful, the result of a nine year old Tom attempting to block a bottle his father had hurled at Kathy one night. It broke on his arm, a shard embedding itself into his wrist, but his sister had remained unharmed.

His mother had been working, believing her husband wouldn't be home for hours yet. Kieran had been out looking for jobs and with Liam at a neighbours' only Kathy had been with him, too small to do anything but sit beside him as he bled on the floor until their mother came home.

It had been the night she locked their father out.

Sybil had found it impossible not to notice his scars and while, to him, they were just faded marks on his skin, to his wife, they had clearly been much more.

When she'd asked he tried to avoid the topic, fearing it would upset her, and that she would look at him differently. And he'd been right on both accounts.

She cried to start.

And he held her and begged her not to think differently of him.

He reminded her time and time again that it was in the past. That he had moved on from it long before he'd ever met her. He wasn't haunted by demons from his past or dealing with any buried secrets that were going to cause problems.

She had believed him, but she watched him closer afterwards, for a week or so. He didn't comment but it worried him that she thought differently of him after knowing about his father and his old life.

He had seen those creatures, the broken boys who grew into shells of men, never able to leave their troubles behind. The girls who stood on the street corners day and night, believing they were worth nothing more.

He didn't want Sybil to think he was one of those lost souls. Or worse, a man like his father, hiding dark traumas that would manifest itself through his fists when things got the slightest bit difficult.

He was lucky and he told her.

He didn't shy away from the tough times, telling her about the harsh winters, about the weeks without food, how sometimes they truly had been near death.

But he told her of the good times too. That a hard life didn't mean a joyless one. He told her of the games they played in the streets, sneaking into the orphanages for football matches and pretending they were cheered on by thousands at every goal. How in the summer, on rare days they had food to spare, their mother would sometimes take them down to the park and let them play in the pond. How much they were loved and loved each other.

"I know it sounds awful, but I had my family, my mother. It sounds strange but as hard as it was I had a rather stable upbringing."

Most of all he reminded her of _their_ life. Of the man he was when he came to Downton, when they first met.

"I haven't been acting all these years," he'd said, almost desperate to have her understand. "I'm not hiding any demons or a mysterious dark side. I'm still the same well-adjusted, dashingly handsome man who first came to Downton and swept a Lady off her feet."

She had laughed and he almost cried again with relief.

After that it only took a day or so for them to resume their normal patterns. She no longer looked at him like he was a stranger, a broken man, deserving of pity.

She looked at _him_ again.

She didn't say anything now, slipping in beside him and taking his hand, touching the small scar before raising it to her lips and kissing it.

"She won't ever know that," she assured him, not needing to ask what was worrying him. "One day when you tell her, she'll be like Matthew. She won't believe you because she won't ever understand how it could be that a parent could hurt their child, or that people could be so desperate they're forced to steal to avoid starvation."

Tom nodded, knowing he'd die before he ever let his daughter experience the life he had before moving to Mrs Delderfield's.

He remembered being terrified the night Sybil had told him of her pregnancy. He had never understood how a father could hurt their child, but he had never been a father before.

What if once he was, he understood?

Sybil noticed a change in him then, and in the safety of her arms one night he'd confessed his fears. And his wife, his beautiful, kind, loving wife had held him, and stayed awake all night, talking and listening until he felt the fears disappear.

He wouldn't be like that. He'd sooner die.

She repeated her words again tonight.

"There's not a shred of that man in you," she told him, absolutely no doubt in her voice. "You take after you mother, and a stronger woman there never was."

Tom smiled, as he always did when his mother came to mind. She had never left them, even in the coldest winters and the leanest times she had never let them feel anything less them completely loved. Love didn't put food in stomachs but it had given them stability, a constant to rely on.

"I don't know." Tom pulled her closer. "I think my wife comes close."

"I've hardly survived the things your mother has." It was her hand now, that unconsciously brushed the faded cut on his wrist.

"Just because you've never been tested as harshly doesn't mean you aren't as strong," he told her, drawing her close and kissing her firmly. "One day, I promise you, I'll tell our daughter how _her_ mother is the strongest woman I know."

"And I'll tell her her father's the strongest man I know." She kissed him then and Tom couldn't do anything but kiss her back.

Tom smiled when they parted, looking towards the nursery door, thinking of the small life that slept behind it. An impossible child, the result of a love that should never have been, that crossed seas and class and didn't care for either.

Their child.

He turned back to his wife and shook his head.

"The world doesn't have a chance with that one."


End file.
